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This audaciously hopeful young politician could charm his way out of a shooting squad using only the words "America," "optimism" and "future." Obama first rose to national prominence with his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, which statistically lowered U.S. cynicism by 2.4%. His presidential campaign is emphasizing universal health care and the Iraq War (he's for and against, respectively).

Quick Facts

Senator from Illinois (2004-present)

2008 Democratic presidential candidate

Author of two best-selling books

Harvard Law graduate (1991)

Join the conversation!Most commented posts this month:

By Barack Obama

I don't watch youtube videos that often. Half the time when I go on there I see Jeremiah Wright's fat head blaming the KKK for charter schools or something like that and the other half I'm getting RickRoll'd by my staff. No, Plouffe, that was NOT funny. I really wanted to see the dog that looks like Yoda that you promised me.

But sometimes youtube makes me smile a little. Like this clip of Hillary not knowing how to use a coffee machine in a convenience store:

I mean, wow. You press a button and some ass-tasting cappucino comes out. It's not rocket science, Hillary. Or even, you know, running the most powerful country in the world. I'm just saying.

By Barack Obama

Okay, you got me, I agree. The good Reverend Jeremiah Wright is crazy. He's batshit loco. If Elijah Muhammad and David Berkowitz had a lovechild who was baptized by Charles Manson in the Church of Our Lady of Insanity and then raised on an all-Black FLDS compound that child would grow up to be Jeremiah Wright. He's fucking nuts and I, Barack Obama, no longer agree with anything he has ever or will ever say.

If he says the sky is blue, I'll say its green.

If he says the Earth is round, I'll say its flat.

If he says America got what was coming to them on September 11th, I'll say we didn't nearly get the entirety of our comeuppance.

You see that, voters? I've disowned the crazy bastard. Completely. Except for that thing he said about comparing criticisms of his rhetoric to a "Yo Mama" battle:

“If you think I’m going to let you talk about my mama, and her religious tradition,” he said, pausing a beat, “you got another thing coming.”

By Barack Obama

Let me get this straight. The Today Show asked Bryant Gumble what he thought of my hoop skills? The little twerp dissed my first step to the basket, although he conceded that I "saw the floor well" based on a no-look pass to the wing I made after pulling down a defensive board. Let me just say, the day I take basketball advice from Bryant Gumble is the day I give skating advice to Michelle Kwan.

But in the spirit of bi-partisan non-partisanship, here are my scouting reports on the other two presidential candidates -- which I'm submitting today to hoopscouts.com.

By Barack Obama

Republicans and Democrats disagree on pretty much everything. If the Democratic National Committee orders a tuna salad sandwich, the Republican National committee gets a BLT. If a Democrat says he's in favor of gun control, a Republican shoots him in the face. And so on. But everyoneagrees that this ad the North Carolina GOP wants to show is a bad idea. Even ABC thinks the ad exceeds the bounds of good taste, and they brought us the Cavemen sitcom.

The big issue is the part where the announcer calls me too "extreme" for North Carolina, which most people think references the fact that I'm black. After watching it a few times, I guess I see their point. But when I first heard that there was an ad calling me extreme, I was like, Awesome, man.

See, I'm in touch with the young, hip people of today's America. And to them, "extreme" doesn't mean "bad," it means "good." Well, it does mean "bad," but the kind of "bad" that really means "good." The people who get called extreme are guys like Shawn White and Tony Hawk, role models for the young, hip people of today's America.

Rather than run away from this "extreme" thing, I think I should embrace it. How about an ad of me in a Blink 182 t-shirt (young people are really into "punk" music) looking at the camera like, "I've got attitude. Deal with it!" Then I punch the camera and it looks like I just broke your television.

Or we could do one where I'm climbing up a cliff, without any ropes, and then it zooms back to show that it's a reallyfucking big cliff that is like, rising above the clouds.

Exactly how much ground does Hillary need to make up? More than 800,000 votes. Considering her base is old women and illiterate white people I've offended, I can't imagine she'll do it. I literally can't imagine it. When I try to think about Hillary giving her victory speech at the convention, my mind just goes to that scene from The Manchurian Candidate where Angela Lansbury gets capped in the face.

What? You haven't seen the movie? I have. When I took a film class. AT COLUMBIA.

By Barack Obama

This past weekend, Politico ran a piece entitled, "12 reasons 'bitter' is bad for Obama" outlining twelve reasons why my April 6, 2008 "bitter" comments were bad for my campaign, and, honestly, I was a little disappointed. They weren't really twelve distinct reasons, more just different aspects of the same reason: people don't like when you call them gun-toting, Jesus-fluffing, xenophobes. And some of them were just needlessly snarky, like number three:

3. Some people actually use guns to hunt — not to compensate for a salary that’s less than a U.S. senator’s.

Really, guys? I wouldn't know. My father grew up in Africa. Where he hunted lions with spears. On a goat-herder's salary. You racist bastards. But, really, you couldn't think of twelve more distinct reasons why what I said is bad? That's just sloppy, Politico. In fact, here are twelve reasons why "'bitter' is bad" is bad:

1. The picture you ran with the story makes me look too dignified. Sure, you want to convey my current distress over this flap but, really, you should have found an AP photo of me with my head down or rubbing my temples. "Embattled and weathering the storm" is fine but "beaten and frustrated" would play better. Just ask Hillary.

2. We could do without the snark. And please, please, please finish your thoughts. Sure this sounds good ...

By Barack Obama

Fine, I'll talk about it. On Friday, the Huffington Post linked to a speech I made at a fundraiser in San Francisco where I said the following:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations

And that caused a media shit-storm. In the aftermath, Hillary and John McCain both called me "elitist" and "condescending" (I think they issued a joint press release) and Bill Kristol at the New York Times paradoxically (and rather confusingly) called me a free trade fat cat AND a Marxist. Seriously, f**k all of you. Am I elitist? Hell yeah, I'm elitist.

Let's do an informal survey, America. Right now. Raise your hand if you went to college. Keep your hand up if you went to a four year college and graduated in, you know, four years. Now keep your hand up if you went to law school. At Harvard. And was the first black President of the Harvard Law Review. And wrote two best-selling books and have two Grammys for the book-on-tape versions. How many of you have your hand still up? Just a minute while I scan the room for raised hands... hmm, that's funny - the only raised hand I see is the ONE IN THE F**KING MIRROR.

So f**k you. F**k all of you. F**k the steel-workers in Allentown who lost their contracts to some Chinese firm and blame the Mexicans. F**k the redneck from Danville who hunts woodland creatures to accompany his dinner of moonshine and Keystone Light yet believes gay marriage will threaten his way of life. F**k the Erie canal, f**k the Amish, and f**k the Eagles (I'm a 'Skins fan). Read a book, Pennsylvania, and get back to me when you know your gunrack from your asshole.

By Barack Obama

I'm sorry, General -- can I call you David? Of course I can, I'm going to be President, I can do whatever I want. I'm sorry, David, but I just can't remember how to spell your name correctly. You know what it is? It's the three vowels near the end, the "aeu". Looking back in my notes from previous times you've testified before Congress, I've got "Petreyus", "Petraies", "Petreaus", and "Marjorine". Really not sure where that last one came from.

The reason I bring it up, David, is because I have the opportunity to ask you some questions today while you're getting grilled by the Senate Armed Services Committee and most of them will involve the spelling of your name. I mean, what is that, Greek? It sounds like a Greek name. Petraeus. It's sounds funny when you keep saying it. Petraeus. Pet-raeus. PEH-TRAY-US. Like the word "have". Have you ever said "have" over and over and over again really quickly? By, like, the fifth time it starts to sound weird. Same with "color" and "spoon".

By Barack Obama

So after my campaign stop in a bowling alley on Saturday everyone's had a joke. Yes, I bowled a 37. Yes, I am aware that this is less than four pins a frame. Yes, I am aware that your retarded cousin bowled a score twice that high at your birthday party when you were in third grade. And yes, I am aware that your mother made you invite him when you didn't want to.

But the New York Daily News took it a step further. They interviewed a ten-year-old girl who is better at bowling than I am: little Gabriella Lamas of West New York, New Jersey. And honest to blog, if she wasn't smug about it. First of all, okay, yeah, so she's better than me. But she's been bowling for FIVE YEARS. Since kindergarten. Kids learn fast at that age. I hadn't bowled since the 70's. Do you know what the 70's are, Gabriella? Of course you don't. You're ten.